Les Rayons et les Ombres

Les Rayons et les Ombres ("Beams and shadows", 1840) is a collection of forty-four poems by Victor Hugo, the last collection to be published before his exile, and containing most of his poems from between 1837 and 1840.

One biographer (A. F. Davidson) noted that this book marks the first appearance of Hugo as "poet-prophet, whose function is to instruct kings and peoples about the problems of life." The critical success of Les Rayons may have brought about Hugo's election to the French Academy on 7 January 1841, when he took the seat of a deceased opponent.

The most famous poems are numbers 34 and 42, La Tristesse d'Olympio and Oceano Nox.

Poems

Fonction du poëte

Fonction du poëte ("Poet's Role", 1839) is the first in the collection, and represents a dialogue in which an argument for aloofness is presented, and then refuted.

La Tristesse d'Olympio

La Tristesse d'Olympio ("The Sadness of Olympio", 1837) describes a man returning to Bièvres, Essonne to revisit memories of an old love affair. The poem is linked to Victor Hugo's relationship with Juliette Drouet, the manuscript bearing a dedication to her.Sainte-Beuve disapprovingly compared it to Alphonse de Lamartine's similar and similarly famous Le Lac.